A Real Action Hero - Rising star reveals how he swapped warzone for war movie

The film details the activities of the elite 30 Commando, a small but lethal force created during the Second World War by James Bond author Ian Fleming and Lord Louis Mountbatten. It proved the inspiration for the SAS.

IT might have been a scene from his latest film but this was grim reality.

Actor Ewan Ross star of new war movie Age Of Heroes crouched on the baking hot roof of a building in downtown Basra with one other comrade.

Between them, they had ammunition and weapons, water, a satellite phone and a book of Shakespearean sonnets.

Ewan, 39, said: "I was feeling fairly vulnerable. I was working out there for a private security firm which also employed local Iraqis when we got a phone call to say that the staff had mutinied.

"We had no idea if they would come back to base and try to take us on. So we grabbed what we could and made for the roof to keep an eye on what was happening.

"At the time I was paying my way through theatre school so, while we waited, I learned Sonnet 42 from Shakespeare. It's a love poem. I was lying on this roof talking my way through it 'That thou hast her, it is not all my grief ' and everything seemed just a little bit surreal."

Few actors could finance their studies by playing bodyguard in some of the world's worst hotspots.

But then Ewan's background is highly unorthodox for someone now making his living treading the boards.

After school at Williamwood High, East Renfrewshire, and then Aberdeen Grammar, he set off across Europe, stopping occasionally for some casual work before moving on.

By the time he came back to Scotland, he had decided to join the Army, signing up for the Royal Highland Fusiliers and then making it through the entrance process for Sandhurst.

He said: "It was a metaphorical kick up the butt for me, which was just what I needed. I wasn't the most disciplined pupil at school. The officer training course was the best thing I did.

"They break you down and build you back up. There's a lot of physical stuff and giving you only three hours' sleep fun stuff.

"But by the time you get on the job, you are really polished and honed. You just don't get that kind of training in civvy street."

Ewan went on to become an infantry commander and was posted to train recruits at Glencorse Barracks in Edinburgh, via a stint in Northern Ireland and Belize.

But it was all a little bit tame for the boy who had been lawless at school so he volunteered for the paras and one of the toughest selection processes in the Army.

With his mates in the winecoloured berets, he travelled the world to some of the most dangerous war zones until he decided to become an actor. The seismic move did not happen overnight. He left the Army, tried a variety of jobs and signed on the dole. He even went to Ecuador and learned Spanish.

But one day he met a former colleague who was going to the Old Vic. He went along and was hooked.

After that, it was more a matter of how he was going to pay for his training which is when his army experience came in particularly useful.

Ewan joined the ranks of the elite private security men who travel the world taking care of the great, the good and, in some cases, the not so good.

He said: "In South America the problem is mainly kidnapping and you have to watch out for the gaps and spaces in security where the hostagetakers could get in.

"Elsewhere, it's really about keeping the client safe, looking out for alQaeda or regime sympathisers." When Ewan sent one of his army mates a photo of him doing the "sparkle" a move during one of his dance classes at the Neighbourhood Playhouse in New York it went round the world in minutes.

He said: "We had to get a special kit for the dance classes. I had to buy a dance belt which is a cross between a jock strap, a Gstring and jazz pants. I topped it off with my army vest to try to introduce an element of masculinity."

But if Ewan has suffered for his art, when it came to his latest project, he was made for the role.

He plays a commando alongside Sean Bean and Danny Dyer in the new action thriller out this week.

The film details the activities of the elite 30 Commando, a small but lethal force created during the Second World War by James Bond author Ian Fleming and Lord Louis Mountbatten. It proved the inspiration for the SAS.

Ewan plays Gable, socalled because he looks a little like and bizarrely believes he is Clark Gable. He is part of the small team Bean forms around him to carry out some of the most effective antiNazi hits during the war.

Of course Ewan, a former para, took a lot of ribbing for playing a commando the paras' great rivals.

But when the casting director heard of his background, he was signed up almost immediately.

It is Ewan's first big movie. He has already played alongside Debbie Harry in The Honey Trap and has had success off Broadway both as Frank O'Hara, the American poet, and Tibault in Romeo And Juliet.

It is a measure of how far Ewan has come from the boy who once thought Shakespeare was only something you were forced to learn at school.

Age Of Heroes is likely to make his name in Scotland and across the world as he acts out a role he probably knows more intimately than anyone else on set.

He said: "It was great fun making this movie, which brought loads of experiences flooding back and what a great story to tell."

Age Of Heroes is out on Friday.

Bond man behind the elite squad

The assault unit 30 Commando was the brainchild of Lord Louis Mountbatten and James Bond creator Ian Fleming.

The men drafted into the unit were forbidden to discuss or document their activities and it was 50 years before the world discovered this secret elite unit existed.

It was founded on September 30, 1942, and disbanded on March 26, 1946 only to be reformed in February 2010.

Its mission was intelligencegathering coupled with surprise strikes.

Its numbers varied but the men who were coopted into it, from all the services, worked in small, effective groups that could move quickly and lethally. Initially codenamed the Special Engineering Unit, members were given specialist commando and weapons training.

They also received instruction in all types of explosives, parachute and small boat handling, safe cracking, search and document recognition and escape techniques.

Assault unit 30 operated in all European and North African theatres and many of its missions were personally directed by Ian Fleming, who later used some of the characters and nicknames to people his novels.

In 2010 the Royal Marines formed 30 Commando Information Exploitation Group (30 Cdo IXG) and the unit was brought back to life.

AN ALIST EDUCATION

The Neighbourhood Playhouse is one of New York's most prestigious theatre schools.

Past students include actors such as the late Steve McQueen, left, Gregory Peck, Joanne Woodward, Diane Keaton, Chris Noth, Jeff Goldblum and Jennifer Grey. Based in Manhattan, it was originally a working theatre. It also houses dance studios, a costume and scenery annexe and an impressive library.

Students are taught the Meisner technique, created by a former director, Sanford Meisner, which lays emphasis on the "doing" of acting.